for as forming the grand characteristic of the new economy as compared with all which the earth has yet exhibited.

14. Now, supposing it had been permitted as to revisit the earth immediately after the creation of man and his introduction into Eden, and that the nature of his new constitution had been disclosed to us, as well as the nature of his relations to the universe, what a grand volume would have been laid open to our contemplation illustrative of the moral character of his Creator! Here was a being whose nature is not only a virtual compendium of the preceding stages of creation, and, as such, an exponent of the power, and wisdom, and goodness of God, but in him the laws of matter are to find their interpreter, the vegetable kingdom its uses, the animal tribes their sovereign, and all creation its subordinate completion and its end. Here was a being who, besides being a continuous link in the chain of the Divine Manifestation, could, as the creature to whom the manifestation is made, turn round and look back upon that chain, and, by that very act, show himself to be the most important part of it. The created universe is a great system of Divine symbols; and here is the first being the earth has seen capable of interpreting them-capable of conceiving of the very properties of the Divine character which they are meant to express, the ideas they are intended to suggest, and of making them the media of intelligent and sympathetic intercourse with the Deity. The very first step towards the production of an external material economy, presupposed the "eternal power and Godhead," and disclosed somewhat of the internal economy of the Divine Nature; and here is a being on whom this external economy reacts, as soon as he is placed in relation with it, so as to disclose an internal economy of his own, answering in some respects to that of the Infinite Creator. In this new creature we behold a being capable of knowing that which is not himself; of breaking away from the chain of mere sensations received from this external economy, and in which he rather loses than finds himself; and of so looking in upon the phenomena of his own mind as to be made distinctly conscious of a three-fold object or element of knowledge of himself as a distinct existence, of the finite creation to which he belongs and from which he derives his sensations, and of the Infinite Maker of both, presupposed by their existence. Still more: here is a Person, a being influenced by motives, determined by will, and having a high moral end of his own; a creature in whose mysterious constitution Law and Liberty-perfect Law

and conscious Liberty-harmoniously co-exist; and whose voluntary power renders him at once capable of loving, and a proper object of love. And, beyond all, here is a creature who, being thus capable of willing, and loving, and of imprinting the proofs of these powers on every object around him, is also endowed with the profound consciousness of what he ought to do, and with the capability of finding his highest happiness in doing it. He is a law unto himself, a self-executing law. He encloses within himself a whole system of moral government-laws, and judge, and prison, and instruments of torture, if he violate his own constitution-conscious improvement, and ever-increasing happiness, as the result of conformity to it. Here is an innocent being on probation, capable of conceiving of immortality, and of aspiring after it; his nature enclosing moral possibilities of the most opposite kind. What if all limitation should be removed from them in regard to time, and the consequences of his probation be allowed to accumulate and extend through all future duration! Surely "there is a spirit in man," a new subjective power, a substance capable of examining both its own phenomena and those of matter; but finding the former within, and the latter lying in a sphere without; and having to resort to consciousness for the one, and to the distinct method of observation and experiment for the other.

15. Now if, according to the law under consideration, every created object expresses some property of the Divine Nature, how distinct and solemn an utterance of the moral character of God is made in the moral constitution of the new creature, man. The apparent tautology of the phrase, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness,"* only denotes more emphatically, according to a Hebrew idiom, the pre-eminent moral resemblance of man to God. Everything else only discloses a part or property of the Creator; here, at length, is His image. If man is, in the language of Clement,† "the most beautiful hymn to the praise of the Deity," we could not have had his moral capabilities disclosed to us, and have remembered that, even in their utmost development, they will not measure the same Divine perfection in God, but only indicate its existence, infinitely greater, without feeling that the burden of his hymn is that of the seraphim, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty."

*Gen. i. 26.

† See Cohortatio ad Gentes, p. 78.

CHAPTER II.

THE PAST BROUGHT FORWARD.

1. A SECOND principle of the manifestation leads us to expect that "all the laws and results of the preceding stages of creation will be found brought forwards into the human economy; and that all that is characteristic in those lower steps of the process will be carried up into the higher-as far as it may subserve the great end; or unless it should be superseded by something analogous in this higher stage." For, were it not for this law, the manifestation would be neither progressive nor continuous, but would be ever beginning de novo. Everything would be isolated. After the Divine Procedure had continued for untold ages, all the past would be unknown and lost to the present, and to all the future. And the proof of all-sufficiency for a connected manifestation would be forever wanting.

2. An inspection of man's constitution alone would supply abundant illustration of the fulfilment of this law. But we have now reached a point in the development of the Divine Plan which gives us access to the Word of God, in addition to the more ancient volume of His works. The latter, indeed, is still available in indicating the probable geological period since which man has been added to the inhabitants of the earth; but the Bible, besides enabling us to assign, within certain limits, the chronological date of man's appearance, supplies information of peculiar interest respecting the creative process which introduced that great event. What circumstances may have attended preceding creations, we know not, but the record of man's creation is deemed of sufficient importance to be accompanied with an account of the miraculous scenes which introduced it. as those scenes are found to illustrate our law, as well as the constitution of the newly-created man, to these we shall direct our attention first.

And

3. Before proceeding to prove this, it is important rightly to estimate the character of the Mosaic account of the creation. Having no reason whatever to regard it as a poem, a myth, a philosophic speculation, a translated hieroglyph, or in any other light than that which it assumes to be a history of facts, of Divine origin, conveyed through the limitation of a human medium, and for human use-we find, on reading it, that it

exhibits precisely those characteristics which analogy would have led us to expect.

4. It is strictly anthropopathic, or in harmony with the feelings, views, and popular modes of expression which prevail in an early state of society, and which are always best adapted for universal use. Hence the colloquial, or dramatic, style of the account. For example: And God said—not that there was any vocal utterance, where, as yet, there was no ear to hear, (each of which would imply a corporeal structure) — let there be light-let there be a firmament-let the earth bring forth-by which we are to understand that these effects were produced just as if such a fiat had been, in each instance, vocally uttered, and such a formula actually employed. The bare volitions of the Infinite Mind are deeds. So, again, when it is said that God "rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made;" the truth involved obviously is, not that of reposing from fatigue, for Inspiration itself affirms that "the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary," but that of ceasing or desisting from a process which has reached completion. The pause at the close of the sixth day, and the continuation of it on the opening of the seventh, resembled the quiet of a person relaxing and at rest after a laborious and exhausting process. But the objection urged by a so-called spiritual philosophy against such anthropopathia is ultimately unfounded and suicidal. That philosophy itself is unavoidably anthropopathic in its very denunciations of anthropopathia. Necessarily, its language is "of the earth, earthy,"limited and colored by the sensuous media through which it comes. The utmost it can hope to achieve is to escape from a gross to a more refined, to ascend from a lower to a higher, range of anthopomorphism. The danger is less in proportion as it gets away from the sensible to the abstract, it should find that it is leaving behind it all definite and distinct views of the Deity, and is emerging into an atmosphere too rarefied for piety to live and move in.

5. In order to interpret the Mosaic cosmogony aright, another fact to be borne in mind is, that every visible object is spoken of, not according to its scientific character- that would have been not merely improper but impossible, except at the price of consistency-but optically, or according to its appearance;

"Should a stickler for Copernicus and the true system of the world," says J. D. Michaelis, "carry his zeal so far as to say, the city of Berlin sets at such an hour, instead of making use of the common expression, the sun sets at Berlin at such an hour, he speaks the truth to be sure, but his

just as, with all our knowledge of the solar system, we speak, even in scientific works, of the sun as rising and setting. For example: had there been an unscientific human spectator of the creative process, the atmosphere would have appeared to his eye as it does still to every untutored eye, a firm and solid expanse, sustaining the waters above. The sun and the moon would have appeared to be "two great lights" of nearly equal magnitude, compared with which all the astral systems deserved only that which is allotted to them-a passing word. The describer is supposed to occupy an earthly position- himself the centre of the universe. The earth is said to have brought forth grass, and the waters to have produced living creatures; though we are to believe that no creative power was delegated to the elements to produce them, but that they were made in full perfection by the simple volition of Omnipotence; but then, to a human looker-on, they would so appear to have been produced. And the fiat is said to have been issued, "Let the dry land appear;" when there was no human eye to see it; but had there been a spectator, it would have risen to his view as if such a command had been literally given. And if to this optical mode of description it be objected that as there was no human spectator, the account can only be received and interpreted as an allegorical representation, we reply that it is the very method for answering its great design-that of being popularly intelligible; and that the way in which it becomes both intelligible and vividly graphic is by placing the reader, in imagination, in the position of a spectator.* But much more inconsistent are manner of speaking it is pedantry."-Essay on the Influence of Opinions on Language, and of Language on Opinions. 1769.

*Gen. i. 25; ii. 5. In accordance with this rule of interpretation, we find Gregory of Nyssa, (394,) who wrote an apologetic explanation of the six days' work, teaching that the phrase, "God said,' should not be understood of an articulate sound: a supposition which were contrary to the nature and unbecoming the majesty of God, but of an intimation of will." Similar is the remark that it "is the manner of Scripture to describe what appears to be, instead of what really is." - Ep. de Pythonissa, p. 870. And Chrysostom, on Gen. i. 5, says, "Do you see what condescension (accommodation to our weakness) this blessed prophet (Moses) has used; or, rather, the benevolent God, by the mouth of the prophet? . . . the Holy Spirit moved the tongue of the prophet in adaptation to the weakness of the hearers, and thus expressed all things to us in an intelligible manner utters everything in conformity with the manner of men. - Hom. in Gen. vol. i. pp. 12, 13. Quoted by Dr. Davidson in Bib. Hermeneutics, pp. 118, 120.

To the same effect is the great Talmudic maxim, The expressions used in the law are like the ordinary language of mankind. De Sola's New Trans